The reactionary Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed victory after the closely contested national election in Israel. His Likud Party has won at least 29 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, the Knesset, which caused this party to have a great position to form a ruling coalition. Likud’s main challenger is the Zionist Union. It won 24 seats. The Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog has already called Netanyahu to concede defeat. President Reuven Rivlin, a longtime Likud loyalist, will designate Netanyahu to form the next government once the distribution of seats is finalized among the ten parties that reached the threshold of 3.25 percent of the vote. There have been discussions about the shape of the next coalition long before votes went to the polls. Netanyahu has pledged support from his own Likud. He is supported by other right wing nationalist parties like Jewish Home and Yisrael Beiteinu. These parties have ultraorthodox Jewish people. These five parties combined to hold 53 seats according to exit polls. Herzog heads the Labor Party. His partner in the Zionist Union bloc is former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the tiny Hatnuah party. Herzog had the assured support of only the Zionist Union, the middle-class “left” Meretz Party and Yesh Atid, the secular party of former TV newscaster Yair Lapid. According to exit polls, these three parties may win 44 seats between them. The Kulanu Party or a split off from the Likud has a huge role with its ten seats bringing a new right wing coalition to 63 seats, which is a narrow majority. Netanyahu has offered the finance ministry to Kulanu Party leader Moshe Kahlon, a former Likud cabinet minister. The parliamentary system has contradictions. The parties of the Joint Arab List won 13 seats, which is the third largest in the Knesset. They traditionally refuse to participate in government. Netanyahu fired Lapid as finance minister and Livni as justice minister that brought up a previous coalition. Then, the elections came 2 years later. Netanyahu used extremist rhetoric all over the campaign. He made racist attacks on Palestinians (he even said that Arabic people are coming to the polls, which is race baiting garbage from him). The secular Yesh Atid party backed Herzog.
The election dealt with the issues of the economy in Israel not just about Middle Eastern foreign affairs and the Palestinian plight. There is great economic inequality in Israel. That is why many people in Israel have expressed discontent. The right wing Netanyahu gave a provocative speech in Congress recently which said that Iran wants to have a nuclear weapon, which they don’t have. In the final days of the campaign, Netanyahu shifted focus from Iran to the Palestinians, seeking, with some success, to lure the racist and settler vote away from Jewish Home and Yisrael Beiteinu. He publicly declared his opposition to a two-state agreement with the Palestinians. On Tuesday, he made an unusual Election Day appearance in Har Homa, a Jewish suburb of East Jerusalem built illegally on Palestinian land, to warn that his government was in danger from a reportedly heavy turnout among Israeli Arab voters. In actuality, even the Zionist Union party supports the status quo in dealing with Palestinians. Livni’s father commanded an unit of the terrorist Irgun. She or Livni was famous for being the foreign minister during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. The sad party is obvious that the status quo continues. Palestinians suffer segregated buses, checkpoints, blockades, and the establishment in Israel could not give one inch of concern. GOP reactionary extremists, talk show propagandists (like Limbaugh, Savage, etc.), the Koch Brothers, Democratic neoliberal compromisers, and theocratic preachers ally with Israeli policies. They are allied with AIPAC too. The negotiations between Iran and the P5 plus one continue. The extremists lie and say that Iran is close to forming a nuclear arsenal. Unlike the secret nuclear power Israel, Iran is a signatory of the Non Proliferation Treaty and has always been willing to prove its peaceful intent. Both parties of America (being Republicans and Democratic people) follow American imperialism not just people like Tom Cotton (who supported sending an incendiary letter to Iran filled with neo-conservative rhetoric). We have to ally with progressive Israelis and Palestinians who want peace for all in the Middle East.
For a long time, the racists have used war, sex, money, media propaganda, etc. as a means to try to manipulate and control all of us. The bad news is that we have a long way to go. The good news is that there are many black people globally who reject naiveté and who seek justice in uncompromising terms. I recently saw a website on Afro-Australians and their experience mirror our own in many ways as black people (like in racism, economic issues, and standing up for their human dignity). This is a spiritual battle. That is why one secret is to not only learn wisdom, but to find time to meditate, eat healthy, and treat our people right. When we treat our people right, then we will be blessed. At the end of the day, the spiritual manna can enrich our hearts and our souls as one people. You are right. Some Millennials have to see that the struggle is not over. The structural problems of racism, poverty, misogyny, and other evils still exist internationally. The n word not only slanders black people, but it has been used by many to stereotype human beings in a vicious, derogatory way. The word is anti-human. I am a Millennial. I still believe in the dream where racism and police terrorism are extinguished, so humanity can live in justice, peace, and tranquility. I have faith that one day, there will be no poverty and no imperialism. We will continue to stand up and speak up for our black brothers and our black sisters in season and out of season. When you look at history, we see the Ghetto Warsaw Uprising, we see the slave revolts, etc. These events show that self-defense is never equivalent to unjust violence. I will never forget what those savages (as in white racists) have done to our ancestors.
Rosie Perez knows what she is talking about. We know the racism is found in some (not all) Latino people. Rosie Perez broke it down perfectly. There are many Latinos with a lot of black African heritage. I know about the Afro-Latinos and other people who are black just like black Americans. It is important to know that many Afro-Latinos are progressive activists who fighting for the liberation of black people. So, I want to make that perfectly clear. Raven Symone is 2 years younger than me and she should know better. Many of the "New blacks" want to ignore how subtle and slick racism can be. First Lady Michelle Obama never deserved to be disrespected in that fashion and that is why the host was fired. The comment was racist and stupid point blank period. It is a shame that the First Lady of this country has been slandered not only by the Univision host, but from other people who are evil. Raven Symone, Lee Daniels, Don Lemon, and these New "Blacks" have similar views on race and we have the right to disagree with them. Raven Symone doesn't want to be called African American, which is her right. Yet, I have the right to call myself an AFRICAN AMERICAN AND a BLACK AMERICAN ALL DAY EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT APOLOGY. I hope that Raven Symone embraces more progressive, revolutionary views on race. We all want her to grow and wake up, but we do have the right to disagree with her on some issues. Calling black people as similar to a science fiction movie about apes has been a known racist tactic. We, as black people, should never put up with this. Regardless of our ideological views, one thing that we should never put up with is when the First Lady (who is a gorgeous black woman) is disrespected.
First, it would be fair to show where I agree with Damon Dash on and then later show where I disagree with him on. He is right that people have the right to own their own resources. Power readily deals with ownership. Black people as ideologically diverse as Dr. Claud Anderson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, etc. want black people to be empowered as a way for us as a community to control our own destinies. Pooling our resources to help our own people is plain commonsense. There is nothing wrong with power if it is used correctly. There is nothing wrong with black people building our own infrastructure and standing up for our own interests (as long as we promote selflessness, solidarity, unity, and integrity. Selfishness contributed to the Great Depression of 1929 and the current global recession in our generation of the 21st century). Also, there is nothing wrong with a person owning a business as long as the workers are treated right and the economics of the business is dealt with in a legitimate way. Here is what he is wrong at. He called workers lazy collectively. Workers built this nation in many ways. It was the workers in jobs that help America to have legitimate work days, to have safety standards, to have a ban of abusive child labor practices, and to grow the minimum wage. Labor has dignity and to call people with jobs lazy is disrespectful. Also, many qualified people struggle to get jobs, so not all jobs are easily attainable. One aspect of the black African cultural tradition is about cooperation and unity. Cooperative economics and progressive economic insights can help our people. We should always reject cutthroat, laissez faire capitalism. That version of capitalism has exploited not only Africans, but oppressed the workers of the world. If we want to be free, then we should never shame workers in an inappropriate way. We want to shame the policies of oligarchy and advocate economic justice for all people. That’s the point. Neoliberal capitalism has caused endless wars, environmental degradation, colonialism, neo-colonialism (as the resources of Africa and the South are exploited by the one percent at the expense of the masses of the workers) and economic instability, which has resulted in the deaths of over 1 billion human beings in the past five centuries according to the researcher Asad Ismi. The crisis of capitalism has influenced the existence of the modern recession since 2007. There is a massive transfer of money from the poor to the super wealthy (while they have corporate welfare handouts). We must fight poverty since we can never be liberated unless the poor of our community are liberated. Liberation is about empowering the workers and allowing power to be in the hands of the masses of the people.
By Timothy
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